Sick pay and Covid absence

This is a new one on me, it's all new I guess as shit changes monthly it seems.

My employer insists you are absent from work if you test positive. However, as we have no sick pay policy of any worth, you only get statutory sick pay after day 4.

Q, is it legal to insist you don't work, but not pay you? Employers explain a staff member can use Holiday to top up but, what if you'd allocated all your holiday and had none spare?

Employers can send you home if you have a notifiable infections disease, which includes Covid, even if you are symptom free. You would then get the same sick pay as if you are too unwell to work.

How your employer is going to know you have Covid I'm not sure. Will they be providing and supervising tests?

Sick leave is sick leave. Your employer cannot tell you to use your holiday allowance. It's explicitly against the law https://www.gov.uk/taking-sick-leave

Note too that if you were sick during holiday leave, you can take that as sick leave and continue to have your holiday allowance.

It sounds like you work for a crap company that's breaking the law to exploit you.

I read it more as though they'd pay statutory sick pay, which is shit, but if you want you can use your holidays instead so that you're not short of money. It's shit but I've done it in the past because if you only get statutory then you probably also get low pay and probably can't afford to miss any pay for the first few days and also the amount of money you get after that is an insult.

Thanks for the above. Not sure if I was clear

Company basically insists on you being absent from work with a +result but, won't pay you. Only statutory pay exists, after day 4. Can a company do this? Force you off work but not pay you?

Covid SSP is from day 1

This is changing to day 4 again soon (April 1 or 6 I can't remember)

This ended on 24 March 2022, apologies if I mislead.

I guess this is because there is no Coronavirus any more...

didn't realise they had changed this back, fuckers

I would continue to work. At least, I would not participate in testing or declare myself exposed or sick, if there was no sick leave policy in place with payment.

The company reaps what it sows.